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peasy
09-19-2002, 07:23 PM
Does anyone have any guesses at how Disney plans to incorporate the Tower of Terror into the California theme?

Matterhorn Fan
09-19-2002, 07:29 PM
Well, this is just a guess, but since the Tower of Terror attraction takes place in the Hollywood Tower Hotel, I think they'll just put the TOT in the Hollywood section of DCA.

Morrigoon
09-19-2002, 07:34 PM
If I had to venture a guess I'd say that the whole "Hollywood Tower Hotel" thing fits pretty well into the theme.

peasy
09-19-2002, 07:59 PM
Sorry about that. I should have done more research. I have never been on the ride and didn't know that the name of it was the Hollywood Hotel. I hope that it saves that part of the park because when I visited it last year it was DEAD! Looking forward to riding it in 2004!

tinkfreak
09-19-2002, 08:29 PM
Also I think they're giving it a differnet look, more in theme with California.

Lost Boy
09-19-2002, 09:27 PM
The Hollywood Tower Hotel in Florida is based (very loosely) on the real Hollwood Tower Hotel, which is still there today. You can see it from the Hollywood Freeway, but it is very much smaller in reality. Only about 3 or 4 floors high, and not as nice looking. The one in Florida is based on the year 1932 so everything, including the queue line music is from that era. The Florida has 4 lift shafts and two drop shafts. The cars move from the lift cages to the drop towers thru the "5th Dimension" room. There is also a "Ghost Corridor" sequence on the way up.
The one at DCA will be California Spanish deco. Lots of large adobe bricks and spanish arches. The year will be 1928. The DCA version will have 4 lift/drop shafts, with no "5th Dimension" room. There will be Ghost Corridors and possibly some new effects that are not present in Florida. Oher than that, we will just have to wait and see. One thing is for sure. Based on the steel framework I have seen last Sunday, this will be a very impressive building.

justagrrl
09-20-2002, 05:54 AM
Originally posted by Lost Boy
with no "5th Dimension" room.

Can someone explain what this 5th Dimension is?

Sailor Butterfly
09-20-2002, 06:43 AM
Yes, pleeese could someone explain it. I keep reading about this "5th Dimension" and I'm still unsure what it is. :confused:

RStar
09-20-2002, 08:49 AM
The elevator room actually rolled out of the shaft and moved over to the drop shaft across the room. The movement went not only up and down, but forward as well. They call that the 5th demension just to make it sound spooky, even though it is still part of the fourth. And it is because elevators don't usually move forward. Unfortunatly it looks like they axed it from DCA due to cost.

Also, the exterior design will resemble LA City Hall, thus giving it a California theme. I belive that is why they went to a 1928 year.

Ghoulish Delight
09-20-2002, 09:20 AM
Originally posted by RStar
The elevator room actually rolled out of the shaft and moved over to the drop shaft across the room. The movement went not only up and down, but forward as well. They call that the 5th demension just to make it sound spooky, even though it is still part of the fourth. And it is because elevators don't usually move forward. Unfortunatly it looks like they axed it from DCA due to cost.
Cost and space. The Florida version has a significantly larger footprint to accomodate the 5th dimension.

What I wonder is how they are going to do the ride, technically. The reason the 5th Dimension exists at all is that they could not quite figure out how to have the lift shaft be the same as the drop shaft (at least according to the special I saw about Florida's version). Therefore, they needed 2 shafts, and they needed a way to travel between them. Thus the 5th Dimension. Well, the DCA building is looking rather small to house 2 shafts. So perhaps they finally found a way to make it 1 shaft.

I also recently heard that there is going to be a new, unique show element in the DCA version to make up for the "loss" of the 5th Dimension. Perhaps it will be a worthy addition. We can hope, right?

Lost Boy
09-20-2002, 07:03 PM
The DCA version has four lift/drop shafts. There is no movement across a floor to get from a seperate lift shaft to a seperate drop shaft. So, here is the scenerio as I see based on my knowledge of Florida's version and what I see in the basic steel framwork at DCA now.
You will enter the lobby area, go to the library to see the video which explains why you are here and what happened to the missing section of the hotel. Then you will leave the library and go to the boiler room where you will be queued up and then one of four elevators will open and you will board. Then the elevator will proceed upward and make a stop where you will witness the
"Ghost Corridor" (Which should be pretty much the same as Florida as there is nothing to technical here, just the old "Pepper's Ghost" trick with some extra added goodies), then the car will travel up, stop, move back a little and then go up again where the Horton Doors will open allowing you a great view of both Parks, then you will be dropped (how many times we don't know yet). Something new may happen at this point, we will have to wait and see. Then the car will take you down, you will get out and the car will either go up one level or down one level, depending on the set up to pick up the next batch of guests.
In Florida the big difference is that after the Ghost Corridor the elevator continues up to the 5th floor where the actual ride car moves out of the lift shaft and travel about 20 feet forward to the drop shaft. During this trip there is all kinds of Twilight Zone images that appear to float all around your car. As you approach the drop shaft, the doors are closed and all you see is a black space in front of you. Then, thru high intestiy projected light beams, a swirling pattern of lights forms in front of you, spinning around like a galaxy in space, until it splits down the middle forming what looks like a tear in space. The tear opens and you enter the drop shaft, which takes you up a couple of floors, drops you about 10 feet, takes you up to the top, drops you again. In Florida they now have a "Random Drop Generator" program so you never know how many times (usually between 3 and 7) you will be dropped. At the conclusion of the drop sequence, the drop shaft mechanism slowly lowers the car all the way down to the 1st floor (you boarded on the 2nd floor) and during this a Rod Serling film is projected on a screen that is in front of your car. It takes up your entire field of vision so it looks like the image is floating is space in front of you. When it reaches the bottom, the car backs out of the lift shaft, turns toward the exit doors and moves up to them. After you leave and the doors close, your car backs away from the exit door, turns again so that it is again facing forward, and then back up across the floor to the waiting lift shaft, which carries the car back up to the 2nd floor for another group of unsuspecting guests and the cylce repeats. Since in Florida there are 4 lift shaft and only two drop shafts, the 1st and 2nd lift shaft cars go to drop shaft 1 and lift shafts #3 & 4 go to drop shaft #2. Also each of the four lift shafts has its own "Ghost Corridor". The 1st and 4th lift shaft go to the 3rd floor ghost corridor and lift cars 2 & 3 go to the 4th floor for the ghost corridor. Its a great design, and I think two floors here will also house the ghost corridors sharing them in the same manner. The big difference will be the movement of the car across 20 feet of space with all the twilgiht zone goodies to see. I wonder what they will do here that will be different? We all wait and watch. No matter what, I think it will be a fun ride into The Twilight Zone and back (hopefully):eek:

slaakker
09-20-2002, 10:34 PM
Didn't it say in todays DIG that it has only one drop shaft?

FabShelly
09-21-2002, 12:05 AM
Andrea Monti wrote a piece about how the attraction we're getting started out as Paris' ToonTower at JimHillMedia.com . I believe it has three drop shafts, but it's late and I'm too pooped to look.

Michelle

Lost Boy
09-21-2002, 05:50 PM
What I think Al meant is that we only have one shaft tower instead of two. In Florida there is a Life tower/shaft that has four life cages, and a drop tower/shaft that has only two drop cages. In DCA we are getting one lift/drop tower/shaft with four elevators. That's what I have been led to beleive by everybody I have talked to in Imagineering. And there two floors that look like they will be the Ghost Coridors, two per floor, one for each of the four cars. That looks to be the same layout as Florida. I only have the floor plans for the Florida Attraction so I don't know the exact layout of ours, Yet.

driftwood714
09-22-2002, 01:08 AM
Lost Boy, are you sure there are 4 drop shafts in our Tower? Everywhere I've read and heard from has been 3 drop shafts.. I usually enjoy reading your information because it's mostly right, but this one I don't know about.. Keep us informed, tho!

GeminiAngel
09-22-2002, 08:34 AM
When is it opening in dca?

Baloo
09-22-2002, 07:13 PM
If i remember correctly wasn't the reason the forward movement rwas removed in the newer version of the Tower because the imagineers were never happy with the MGM version. The original forward movement was supposed to have several mirrors to add to the floating effect but were eliminated because of sensor problems. The sensors kept getting confused from all the reflection. Weren't they already working on ways of fixing these problems that made them uncomfortable on the shows presentation. In my opinion i found the effect extremely exciting the first time but after i rode it again the clanking of the mechanism engaging on the second shaft and the very visible floor with tire marks made it predictable and the drop was not unexpected. I am sure that with one up and down shaft per elevator that it would be less expected when the drop wopuld occur

Lost Boy
09-22-2002, 09:42 PM
It may be now that 3 drops is what we will get. Originally, it was to have been four lift shafts in the back tower and 3 drop shafts in the front tower, but with all the budget cuts and the 5th dimension room being eliminated, I think you are right on the 3 lift/drop shafts in one tower.
And I did notice the difference in the video I have of the ride from very early in it's exsistance to when I rode it several times in 1999. The degradation of that part was very noticable and the noise was pretty bad. There seems to be two divisions of fans on this one. You either love the 5th dimension efftect, or you hate it. There seems to be now middle ground. Persoanlly, for me, I love it. For those people who have never ridden it, and have no idea whats going to happen, the very fact that your car leaves the tower and moves across the room, is a very big efftect. And, if it is working properly, it is an amazing effect. Both times I rode the Tower in Florida in '99, despite the noise and the lights being on too bright, I still enjoyed the ride. Originally the 5th floor had mirrors on both the cieling and floor, and gave a very nice effect of being in space, since the light were out, and a star field was projected onto them, and the reflections in both mirrors gave an endless starfield effect. Too bad the sensors couldn't cope with the mirrors, and I noticed when I rode that they were gone, and you could see the tire tracks on the floor. So, maybe they will come up with something better for us.
One can always hope.

HTHBellcaptain
09-23-2002, 08:53 PM
Originally posted by Baloo
If i remember correctly wasn't the reason the forward movement rwas removed in the newer version of the Tower because the imagineers were never happy with the MGM version. The original forward movement was supposed to have several mirrors to add to the floating effect but were eliminated because of sensor problems. The sensors kept getting confused from all the reflection.

I was on the opening crew for the Tower at the Disney-MGM Studios. We worked directly with the Imagineers. They never mentioned that effect. I think that the floating effect that you mention might be an urban legend. They were working on a smoke effect, but it was problematic.

I'm sure the reason they chose not to have the vehicles move accross the Fifth Dimension in the DCA version is because of budget constraints.

Laffite
09-24-2002, 12:49 PM
Originally posted by Lost Boy

go to the library to see the video which explains why you are here


Bwaha hah ha!! :D That is the funniest thing I've read all week! There I am wondering around the park and I have no idea why I'm there..."umm...let's see...I'm going to go to a library to see a video Disney made and it'll explains why I spent $45 to be here...yay!" lol :D

(sorry, just had to do that. I'm not making fun of anything but I thought what you said was really funny when taken from that direction)

Heh heh he...now...back to your regularly programmed thread. :)

SusanP.
09-24-2002, 06:06 PM
Lost Boy, you rock! That was an awesome description, thank you!

I don't think I can wait til '04 though. Might have to make a Florida run next vacation....

Lost Boy
09-24-2002, 07:05 PM
First: The video you are watching in the TOT Library is a unique video that uses old footage of Rod Serling, a look alike, his original voice for about 10 seconds, and a sound alike for the rest. The video only explains why the hotel is in such a deserted state and why you are going up to a room to spend the night (supposedly). It doesn't even make mention of the fact that you are in any Theme Park. You are in Hollywood, at the old Hollywood Tower Hotel.

Second: I have a complete video of the ride from beginning to end, twice. It very clearly shows everything you would see on the ride. It doesn't show the backstage operation or give away any "secrets". That will come later when I finish with the working model. Same deal, request it by email to:

elf_91303@yahoo.com

and I will respond with what you need to do. I will add extra stuff from WDW just to make it interesting. I have tons of stuff from there also.:D

stitcher
09-24-2002, 10:30 PM
Gemini, I don't mean to say anything over those that might know better, but I might lend a guess based on the progress already that TOT might be open around Halloween '03 rather than Spring '04. Again thats just a wild guess based solely on apparent progress and the definite advantage that timimg would have. I think the '04 date is only to keep people from being dissapointed from a delay.